I Heard the Streets Were Paved with Gold
by easternepiphany
Summary: "Jeff, I know you don't believe in the darkest timeline but that's where we are. I've been working on the algorithm to get us to the prime timeline and we need Annie's help to do so. We're going to break her out of the mental hospital and she's going to be a second constable and we're going to reclaim our rightful places."


Britta makes the rounds, Abed following behind her. He doesn't do much but mutter to himself and scribble in a notebook, so she keeps an eye on him. Her other eye moves between Jeff and Troy and Shirley. Jeff is on the fourth floor. There's a nurse that has a crush on him but he doesn't notice her. Troy is on the second floor. The doctors move him to solid foods and he wants to eat nothing but applesauce and chicken soup. Shirley is at The Ballroom, perched on a stool with a glass of vodka in her hands. Britta will have to pick her up later.

She brings things for the guys: a laptop and DVDs for Jeff, comic books for Troy. She brings them homework and class notes. Abed doesn't say anything to anyone and barely looks up from his notebook.

A lawyer calls Britta one day and says Pierce's will stipulated that his belongings would be split among the six of them. She explains the situation, signs the papers, and finds herself in the foyer of Pierce's mansion, one-sixth of which belongs to her.

She spends too much time at the hospital and loses her job. She gets evicted from her apartment. She moves into Pierce's house and brings Abed with her. The apartment is still condemned, roped off with caution tape by firefighters and police officers and Britta closes her eyes and sees flashing lights and fire and blood. The mansion has more bedrooms than she can count but she moves her things into the room next to the one Abed chooses and when she can't sleep, she listens for his pen against paper through the wall.

Jeff and Troy are released from the hospital and Britta picks them up and brings them to Pierce's house. Jeff opens his mouth to object but closes it without saying anything. He takes the bedroom on Britta's other side and Troy moves in with Abed. Britta tries to cook them dinner that first night but burns the chicken fingers in Pierce's oven, which looks like it's from 1970, and orders Chinese instead. It's too soon for pizza.

-

Andre calls her the day after Jeff and Troy move in. Shirley's been drinking almost nonstop, comes home at odd hours, scares the boys. He sounds exhausted and sad and Britta makes sure Jeff and Troy and Abed have anything they need before she gets in the car. She stops at a gas station on her way and buys a big bag of candy for Shirley's kids.

Andre already has a bag packed when Britta gets there. Elijah and Jordan watch a cartoon that flashes colors throughout the dim living room. The lights make Britta's pulse race. She gives them the candy and a small smile and they waste no time dividing it up between them.

Shirley doesn't get in the car willingly, but between the two of them, Andre and Britta manage to buckle her in and shut the door. Andre doesn't look at his wife, doesn't kiss her goodbye, but taps the top of the passenger door like one would a taxi cab. _Go on, get out of here._

On Sunday night, Britta sets alarm clocks in each of the occupied bedrooms. Monday morning she makes sure they've all dressed in their black best, and drives them to the cemetery. Pierce's funeral is small and sad, a man who once had everything but now only has six misfit friends—one too crazy to even be there—and a group of ex-families who couldn't even bother to come say goodbye. An elderly man with creepy, plastic-looking hair stands on the outskirts of the cemetery, watching while gripping a cane. He catches Britta's eye once but turns away quickly. Shirley giggles during the entire service and Abed clutches a backpack. Troy cries and Britta slips her hand into Jeff's, the only hand he has left, and as they lower the casket into the ground he squeezes so hard it's almost painful.

-

Britta drives them to school after the funeral because she doesn't know what else to do. Ushers them into the study room because it's the only place the seven of them can be. Abed speaks for the first time and makes everyone angry and it takes Britta the better part of the afternoon to track Shirley and Jeff down. She finds Shirley trying to break into Duncan's office, claiming he must have the good stuff stashed in there somewhere. Jeff is in the boiler room, staring at the wall.

On the way home Abed says, "I need to go see Annie." He's riding shotgun and his notebook is in his lap.

"We can all go tomorrow," Britta says. "Do you guys want to?"

Jeff grunts noncommittally and Troy nods and Shirley takes another swig of vodka.

"No, I think I need to go alone," Abed says. "But Troy can come with me."

Britta takes a deep breath, wonders how she ended up the de-facto mother of five broken adults. She wonders, for the millionth time, why this happened and why she doesn't get to be broken, too. "We have Biology tomorrow."

No one says anything and when they get home and Britta orders sandwiches from the deli down the street. She goes to bed that night and hears Troy and Abed plotting something through the wall.

"How do we sneak out?" Troy asks.

"Here, write it down. Your new robot voice is too loud," Abed whispers.

Britta doesn't want to be the mom anymore. She slides out of bed and doesn't bother knocking on Jeff's door. He's sitting up and staring at the wall again. Neither of them says anything as she sits next to him and pulls the covers up over their legs. She hooks her left leg with his right one and eventually they scoot further down and fall asleep.

Abed wakes up before the sun. He doesn't usually pray but he does so today, facing east and trying not to wake Troy up just yet. This is an important day. It needs to go right and then everything will be better. He changes back into his funeral clothes from the day before and then nudges Troy a couple of times until Troy's eyes fly open and he looks around for a few seconds, as if he was having a nightmare. Abed assumes he was. He assumes they all have nightmares, now.

Shirley's snores fill the hall and mask Troy and Abed's footsteps down the stairs. Abed slings the backpack over his shoulders and grabs Britta's keys off the counter. He's not entirely sure where Jeff's car is. Only Britta's car sits in the massive driveway and by leaving, Jeff, Britta, and Shirley will be trapped in the house, unable to go to Biology class. But Abed knows there's no way Jeff's going to show up to class anyway, and Shirley wouldn't be able to sit through it if she tried.

"Here, you drive," Abed whispers, handing the keys to Troy. Abed's hands are shaking, just slightly, just enough to notice, and he's nervous in a way he's never been before.

Troy nods, but doesn't say anything, and the two of them ease the back door open slowly. Britta's car is loud when it starts, but it's too cold to have the windows open in the house anyway. "You'll have to read me the directions," Troy says as he eases out of the driveway. "I don't really know where it is."

Abed pulls the print-out from GoogleMaps out of his backpack and guides Troy through Greendale to Riverside Falls. The streets are deserted, stores closed, houses sleeping. They stop for coffee and bagels not because either is particularly hungry but because the sneaking out and the trip take less time than they expected. Troy has to eat slowly still and Abed matches his pace; the woman behind the counter, her eyes still heavy with sleep, watches them warily but Abed gives her a small smile and he pays with his debit card, which for some reason makes people more easy than cash. Criminals never pay with debit cards, Abed reasons to himself.

When they finally get there, the sun is fully up and it's a perfect November day. Halloween was three weeks ago and Greendale had a dance. None of them attended and Abed tries not to think of the authentic Inspector Spacetime costumes he'd been making for everyone that were probably burned in the fire.

"This place is creepy," Troy tries to whisper in Abed's ear. The front door opens automatically with a _swish_ and there's no one in the lobby except for a sad-looking nurse behind a desk.

"Can I help you boys?" she asks. Her hair is falling out of its bun and her voice is hoarse, like she only speaks in whispers most of the time.

Abed gives Troy a look that means _let me do the talking_. Troy nods and Abed smiles widely at the nurse. "Hello there, pretty lady," his voice grows deeper, more reassuring. "Our good friend Annie Edison is here and we'd be forever in your debt if you'd let us see her this morning."

The nurse types a few things into her computer and looks up at them blankly. "I'm sorry. Miss Edison isn't supposed to be receiving visitors yet."

Abed _hmmm_s and slowly inches his foot backwards to nudge Troy. Almost instantly, Troy bursts into tears and his crying sounds scary, robotic, and echoes in the empty lobby.

"Okay, okay," the nurse says loudly. She stands up. "Come on."

She leads them through a group of locked doors to a large room with tables and chairs scattered around. A TV plays the news in the corner and Abed doesn't want to look at it. More death, more devastation. The nurse tells them to wait there and Abed drums his fingers on the table anxiously. The air in this place is suffocating and reminds Abed of things he's spent his whole life trying to forget.

A different nurse brings Annie to their table and Abed's eyes go wide and he feels Troy's do the same. This is not their Annie, who chloroformed the janitor and pranked Jeff with them and rocked at paintball. This is a girl with lank, greasy hair and dead eyes and pale skin. This is a girl whose hospital-issue sweatsuit is at least two sizes too big and whose feet shuffle strangely in worn-out slippers.

This is—well, this is Evil Annie.

"I'll be right in the other room, Annie," the nurse says brightly, and gestures to a large mirror on the wall that obviously has glass on the other side. "I'll come back for you in a little while. Enjoy your visitors."

Abed waits until the door shuts and then reaches for his backpack. "Annie," he says, unzipping it quickly. "We have to talk to you about something very important."

"We miss you, Annie," Troy says.

Annie whimpers at the sound of his voice and claps her hands over her ears. Troy recoils, looks like a wounded puppy, and Abed wonders if he's going to cry again.

Abed takes his notebook out and opens the cover, where three felt goatees are stacked neatly. He passes one to each of them and sticks his own on his face. It feels good, natural, and suddenly the air in the hospital doesn't bother him anymore. Troy puts his on, too, but Annie just runs her fingers over it.

"What if I told you we have a way to make this all go away?" Abed asks. Annie stares up at him and he sees a flash of who she used to be.

-

When they leave the hospital, they each have about ten missed calls and twenty texts from Britta, most of them saying variations of "Bring back my car, you jerks." Some of them aren't so nice. Troy drives again, mostly because Abed needs to write some more things down and by the time they pull into Pierce's driveway he's filled up another three pages.

Britta and Shirley are yelling at each other in the dining room. Jeff sits between them—they've subconsciously began sitting at the dining room table in the order they sit around the study table, leaving empty chairs for Pierce and Annie—but he just stares at the wall.

"We're not your cats, Britta! You don't get to feed us and brush us and expect us to do what you say!" Shirley yells. She's gone from silly drunk to angry drunk. She ran out of the alcohol she brought with her, but Troy told Abed that Pierce has a pretty expansive wine cellar in the basement.

"Where are you going to go?" Britta yells back. "You think you can be around your kids when you can barely stand up straight? What's going to happen when you can't drive them to school or when you pass out and Ben starts crawling or walking? You want something to happen to them, too?"

Shirley looks like she wants to hit Britta and she moves to rise from her chair when Jeff bangs his fist on the table.

"Enough." His voice echoes, bounces off the high ceiling, the way Troy's cries did in the hospital lobby. Shirley and Britta fall silent and everyone stares at Jeff.

"Shirley, you're not going home right now, okay? You're not. Troy, Abed, no sneaking out and stealing the car. And take those damn beards off _now_. Britta, we're going to go get my car and Troy's car and bring them here. We're done with this conversation."

Troy and Abed quickly take their seats. Britta passes them the Indian takeout containers and they all eat their meal in silence. Abed's backpack sits under the table at his feet. He and Troy give each other a look and then pull the goatees off.

_Winger speech to take us home_, Abed thinks.

-

After dinner that night, Britta drops Troy and Jeff off at their apartments to get the cars and some more of Jeff's things. They don't talk about practical things like leases and rent and how it's a giant waste of money to still pay bills for places they don't live. Britta also doesn't ask Jeff if he's okay to drive a car with only one arm. He makes it back in one piece and that's all she cares about.

The weeks pass by and none of them go back to school. Britta calls the dean's secretary and arranges leaves of absence for all of them. She and Abed and Troy clean out Annie's apartment and move her things out and into the bedroom next to Shirley's. They call the hospital once a week and get updates from her doctor.

One day in late November it's Jeff's turn to call the hospital. Britta sits in the kitchen with him researching how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner.

"_What_," he says sharply into the phone. Britta turns her head and his face is dark. He says goodbye to the doctor and slams the phone onto the counter.

"Abed! Troy! Get down here _now_," he yells.

Their footsteps thunder down the stairs and Britta closes her eyes for a moment and imagines. She pretends this isn't Pierce's house and Pierce isn't dead and she and Jeff are just two people and their kids are misbehaving, maybe got into trouble at school or something. She pretends there was no gun in Annie's purse or fire or anything. It only lasts until she opens her eyes and Troy and Abed have those goatees on again.

"Have you two been visiting Annie and putting crap in her head about timelines? Did you give her one of your stupid beards?"

"Goatees," Abed corrects automatically.

Jeff's temper is the size of an ant lately and his face turns purple. Britta wonders if heart attacks or high blood pressure run in his family.

"Jeff, I know you don't believe in the darkest timeline but that's where we are. I've been working on the algorithm to get us to the prime timeline and we need Annie's help to do so. We're going to break her out of the mental hospital and she's going to be a second constable and we're going to reclaim our rightful places."

Troy and Britta exchange a nervous glance and Jeff sputters angrily for a minute before turning on his heel and walking out the side door, slamming it behind him. His car growls to life and speeds out of the driveway.

Abed nods once and goes back upstairs.

Britta shrugs and gives Troy a small smile. He returns it and follows Abed.

"Do you remember Inspector Spacetime?" Abed asks.

Annie stares at him for a moment then nods. Troy slides a box of cookies across the table. She takes one hesitantly and Troy smiles.

"The Inspector is able to travel to different time periods. If we alter the engine of the Dreamatorium to work the same way the Darsit does, we might be able to enter the prime timeline through the Dreamatorium. There, we still live in the apartment and still use it every day."

_The apartment is still condemned. Is the Dreamatorium destroyed?_ Troy scribbles on a piece of scrap paper.

"What's that?" Annie asks softly.

"We'll have to do a test break-in," Abed says. He explains the Dreamatorium to Annie. He wonders if, in the prime timeline, she plays with them. He thinks she might be good at it. "Troy and I will go to the apartment this weekend. If the Dreamatorium is in tact, we'll come back next week and hatch a plan to get you out of here."

He and Troy stand up to leave. Troy leaves the box of cookies on the table.

"You guys are leaving already?" Annie asks. Her voice is small and sad.

Troy leans down and writes something on the back of the scrap paper. He hands it to her and squeezes her hand.

"We'll be back," Abed promises. He zips up his backpack and catches a glance of the scrap paper. _We'll all be together soon. Stay strong, okay? We love you, Annie._

-

Britta makes a real turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. She cooks gravy from scratch and mashes potatoes and makes a green bean casserole. Only the pies are store-bought, one pumpkin, one pecan. She spends the entire day in the kitchen and when she's done, when she carries the turkey onto the table, she feels a bigger sense of accomplishment than she has in a long time.

She's convinced Andre to bring the boys over for dinner and they fill in the empty seats at the table. He still spends the meal eyeing Shirley warily, but she's gone through most of Pierce's stockpile of booze and they've all taken to hiding the car keys.

Troy and Abed don't wear their goatees at dinner anymore but Troy's started to grow some scruff, so even with it gone, there's still a shadowy outline of where it was. Jeff shaves every morning with one hand, ignores the nicks and cuts he gets. He has become the stubbornly strict father. Greendale Parents rule once again.

Shirley's not allowed to hold Ben and he sits next to Andre in a highchair Abed helped carry in from the van. She watches all of her children as they eat but still drinks four glasses of wine with dinner. Jordan asks Shirley when she's coming home and Andre loudly changes the subject before she can answer. Shirley just glares at him.

The gravy is soupy and the potatoes lumpy and the casserole dry. Britta's never been one for holidays, especially not one where you're supposed to sit around with your family and talk about how grateful you are to have them. She hates her family and is more grateful when they leave her alone. This is not a perfect Thanksgiving by far but when she serves the pies and watches Ben smash his tiny fist through a plate of pumpkin, she catches Jeff's eye and smiles. He doesn't scowl back, which is a first. It's sappy, but this is the only family she's ever going to be grateful for.

-

The apartment still has caution tape over the door. According to the landlord and the fire department and the police officers, there was some sort of structural damage from the fire plus the place is still a crime scene, despite that the "crime" was an accident and on paper at least, all the damage is over.

Abed and Troy are surprised to find police officers still milling around the place. It seems more like they're there to avoid doing real work, but it makes it harder for them to get in.

"Excuse me," Abed says. "We live here. Is there any way we can get inside?"

The officer eyes him and Troy, stopping on Troy's throat. "Sorry, boys. Can't let anyone in until the forensics team does the final sweep. We've been backed up."

"But there's nothing to look for. It was a pretty straightforward incident and the whole thing was an accident."

"Sorry," the officer repeats, his voice steely. "We'll call you when it's clear for you guys to go in."

Downstairs, they circle the building, looking for ways in.

"The fire escape," Troy suggests, pointing up. "Too bad your grappling hook is inside."

"This is going to take longer than I thought," Abed says. He pulls out his notebook and scribbles a few things down. "We'll go see Annie tomorrow and tell her we need more time."

-

The week before Christmas, it's Britta's turn to call Annie's doctor. He tells her that Annie isn't making much progress. She still has nightmares and jumps at loud noises. She's taken to wearing a felt goatee around her room and reads the same book over and over again, a novelization of an Inspector Spacetime episode. She sometimes speaks in a British accent and refers to herself as Geneva.

Britta thanks him and hangs up. Jeff stands in the doorway to the kitchen. "How's Annie?"

"The same," Britta lies, turning back to her bowl of cookie dough. She asked Andre for Shirley's recipe books, hoping Shirley would want to make Christmas cookies with her. Shirley waited until Britta mixed the first batch before dumping the entire thing in the cat's litter box. Britta bakes cookies alone now.

"Why are you doing this?"

Britta looks up. "Someone has to." She spoons dough onto the cookie sheet.

"You're insane." There's a ghost of a smile on his face and Britta can't help but lean over the counter and kiss him.

-

They don't have a Christmas tree or any presents but Britta's made dozens and dozens of cookies and they order Chinese food and watch Rudolph. Shirley doesn't drink all of Christmas Day and she leads them in a prayer before they eat dinner. Abed and Troy don't need the fake goatees anymore; Troy's goatee is thicker but Abed's is more prominent than it was just a few weeks ago. Jeff's stopped complaining about it and he sits flush against Britta on the couch.

It's the best day they have so far and Britta feels optimistic for the first time. But then the next day Shirley drinks again and Troy and Abed disappear and Jeff breaks two glasses trying to carry them from the kitchen to the dining room. Britta brings belated presents to Elijah, Jordan, and Ben and says they're from Shirley. She texts Troy and Abed to stop filling Annie's head with silly things. She sweeps up the broken glass and makes love to Jeff for the first time in a long time.

She fixes everything and she's tired. As she lays with Jeff she closes her eyes and rewinds the clock back a year, when they were sneaking around. Maybe neither one of them was whole back then, either, but she'll take those versions of them any day of the week.

Jeff falls asleep and he holds her with his remaining arm. Britta stares at the spot where his arm used to be, smooth and spotless, like there was never anything there. It's the first time she's seen him shirtless and it doesn't feel as painful as she thought it would. Maybe Abed's right. Maybe they all are becoming dark.

After Jeff's snores pick up she slips out of bed to go downstairs and make tea. The TV is on in the living room and Shirley is on the couch in a nightgown watching some sort of crime show. Britta sits next to her but Shirley doesn't turn her attention away from the TV.

"I've been through some tough times," Shirley says, "but for some reason this is the toughest."

"I know what you mean."

Shirley shakes her head. "No, you don't. My dad died. My husband left me. I had an unplanned pregnancy and I didn't know who the father of my baby was. One gunshot, though. One gunshot and things get so bad I'm not even allowed to hold my own children."

"How can we fix this, Shirley?" Britta asks quietly. "How can we make this all go away?"

"I've prayed and prayed and prayed. I thought that Jesus was always listening to me. Maybe He's not. Maybe this whole thing is just beyond prayer."

Britta doesn't reply. She turns to the television where two police officers are shooting after a suspect. The whole sequence makes her kind of queasy.

"I slept with Jeff," she says following a few minutes of silence.

Shirley shakes her head. "At least wait until we're all sleeping next time."

Britta laughs.

-

"We've changed the plan," Abed says one afternoon. "We're going to break you out first and then we can continue to plot from the house."

_We're all staying in Pierce's mansion_, Troy writes. _He left it to all of us._

Annie's eyes move blankly between the two of them. "How?"

"We have to cause a diversion. Troy's going to mess with the plumbing system and we're going to try to hack in to the electricity, too. If we can shut the security cameras down, we can get you out of here and to the car. The hospital doesn't have Pierce's address so they won't look for you there."

Annie looks overwhelmed and for a second, Abed wonders if this is still a good idea. But then he imagines the whole plan working, of Annie becoming Annie again. He and Troy can move back into the apartment and maybe they should ask Annie to come with them. She'd be a good roommate, he thinks. She'd act out movies with them and watch _Cougartown_ and if she fell asleep on the couch he'd cover her with a blanket.

"We'll dress up as the Inspector and his constables. Troy can be Reggie and you can be Geneva. Would that make it easier?"

Annie nods. "They're not going to find me?"

Troy draws her a picture of a puppy in a bed of flowers and Abed leans in and adopts a British accent. "My dear Geneva, we've escaped the blorgons more times than I can count. This shall be no problem at all."

Annie's smile doesn't look the same as it used to, when it reached her eyes and made her whole face light up. But it's the best they'll get for now and Abed knows he can't mess this up.

-

After they leave the visiting room, Troy and Abed circle the building a few times. Troy figures the plumbing shouldn't be too hard to mess with. They need to know what kind of back-up generator the building has, so Abed calls the hospital pretending to be a generator salesman. When the secretary claims that the hospital is all set with generators, Abed asks what kind they're working with and claims his are better but hangs up before she can inquire too much.

They go back to the house and look up the model and Troy figures he can probably dismantle it if he has the right tools.

At dinner that night Britta orders burritos from Señor Kevin's and Abed announces their plan. "We're going to break Annie out of the mental hospital this week."

Britta turns to Jeff, who doesn't say anything and Abed takes another bite of burrito.

"Abed, this is real life, okay? Annie isn't improving and she needs to stay there to get better," Britta says.

"I already told you that we need Annie to return to the prime timeline and reclaim our rightful place. You can keep fighting it but we both know that blue streak isn't a good look for you and once we destroy the prime timeline study group things can all go back to normal."

Jeff still hasn't said anything and Abed knows when he does it's going to be bad. Troy stares at Jeff with wide eyes and Shirley keeps her eyes on her plate.

"It's not ever going to be normal, Abed," Britta says loudly. "It's not. This isn't a movie spoof. Annie's not going to come home and say that we should go to the Valentine's Day dance. She's sick. She's not responding to any treatment or medication and her doctors are talking about transferring her to a hospital in Denver. Just let her get better. Go back to school. Go make a movie. Anything. Just forget about this whole stupid timeline thing. And shave that goddamn goatee. You look ridiculous." She stands up and stomps up the stairs.

It's not until they hear her bedroom door slam that Jeff says, "I think we should do it."

Abed smiles and Jeff smiles back. It reminds him of the day they met.

-

Jeff knocks on Britta's door after dinner but doesn't wait for her to tell him to come in. She's sitting on the bed, her arms and legs crossed tightly. The cat, who seems to hate Pierce's house and spends most of his time hiding under the back porch, is in her lap. Jeff sits down on the bed next to her and reaches out to scratch behind the cat's ears.

"The last few months have been really fucking terrible," he says.

She snorts. "You think?"

"You... you've been doing a really great job. Really. We're not thankful enough. Without you, well, we sure as hell wouldn't still be together. And we'd probably starve without your quick take-out dialing finger."

She looks at him with a small smile. "Do you remember when you said I was the dark cloud that united everyone? What did that mean?"

Jeff can't believe she remembers that, mostly because it was one of the only pieces of bullshit he threw out that year that he actually meant. "Look around, Britta. If we ever had a dark cloud over our heads, it's now. And you've kept us together. You're still a buzzkill but I'm grateful for that. You're killing the bad buzz now."

She examines his face for a moment and then frowns. "You're about to tell me something bad, aren't you?"

He sighs. "I think we should go along with Abed's plan."

"So you want to take Annie, who is extremely mentally unstable, out of the hospital so we can try to break through into a parallel universe where none of this shit ever happened? You think that's a good idea?"

"I don't know what I think anymore. All I know is that we can't go on like this anymore, Britta. We can't stay holed up in this house. We have to get on with our lives. Shirley has to go back to her kids. Maybe Abed doesn't even believe in the timelines. Maybe he just wants to get Annie back with us. I want her here, Britta."

"I bet you do," she bites.

"Stop. Don't do this."

He lets her seethe for a minute. She runs her tongue over her teeth and glares at the wall. "Fine. Let's do it."

In the end, they don't need to go through with Abed and Troy's elaborate plan. Britta knows a guy who can forge papers and he makes Britta Annie's sister and her medical proxy. He then forges a doctor's note from a hospital in upstate New York, where Annie will be transferred.

It's a much simpler plan and Abed is disappointed, so he insists that he and Troy dress as the Inspector and Reggie. He spends the day before the breakout rooting through Annie's things. He finds an old nightgown that looks more like a smock and some gold ribbon and makes Annie a Geneva dress to wear out of the hospital. Troy drives to the store for some construction paper and makes a tiara.

"Annie's going to love this," Troy says happily.

Abed should be nervous but he's not. Everything is going to be all better soon enough. He's missed Annie, has felt like Troy is his only ally within the house. Once she gets out of the hospital she'll be better, too, he tells himself. She just needs to be around the people she loves. She just needs some fresh air and a secret time mission and she'll be their Annie again.

Britta knocks on the door. "Come downstairs, we have to finalize the plan." Her blue streak is freshly re-dyed. She seems to be trying to forget that Abed said it didn't look very good on her, but maybe since she started sleeping with Jeff again she just doesn't care. Abed knows the signs.

On the dining room table is a spread of papers: a map of the hospital grounds, a log of updates Annie's doctor has made over the last few months, Britta's new identification. Jeff and Britta are going over what she's going to say to the doctors and nurses. Shirley types on a laptop, finding a route from the hospital to the house that is quick but also misleading. A bottle of wine sits in front of her but she is still more focused than Abed's seen her in months.

"I think we're ready," Jeff says. "We can do this." Britta gives him a look and he takes a deep, speech-preparing breath. "Now, when we bring Annie home, it might be hard. We have to be patient with her. If we have to wait a while before we try to… get to the prime timeline, then we will. We've gotten this far. We can't mess it up now."

It's not Jeff's best speech. But they sit around the table and eat ice cream and talk about how things used to be and for a little while, it's not painful.

-

Britta tucks her blue streak beneath the rest of her hair. She borrows Annie's clothes so she can look more like an adult. She wears flat shoes and glasses. She carries her paperwork in a manila folder tucked neatly under her arm.

Troy and Abed are standing just outside the front doors. They're dressed in costume and hold a bag with the dress they've made for Annie. Jeff is also standing outside the front doors. He wears his best suit, the right sleeve carefully folded and pinned. He's there to be an outraged lawyer if they need an outraged lawyer. Shirley sits in the car, idling in the driver's seat. She was cut off from her wine at nine the night before, has a terrible headache, but needs to drive the getaway car anyway. Jeff's, Britta's, and Troy's cars only fit five people each, so they'll have to squish but Jeff will sit shotgun and Troy said Annie's lost so much weight anyway. They'll manage.

Britta gives the guys a determined look before she holds her head up and marches through to the lobby. A bright-faced receptionist sits behind the desk and she gives Britta a big smile, a smile too big for the dim room.

"Yes, my name is Brittany Edison and my sister Annie is a patient here. I'll be signing her out today for a transfer to a different hospital." Britta's voice doesn't waver, although she's irrationally nervous. She's conned people like this before. This is old hat for her but there are four people outside who are depending on her to make this right and it's too much pressure. She slides the paperwork over to the receptionist who asks her to wait a moment while she speaks to her superiors.

Britta is left alone in the lobby for a moment and she turns around to catch Jeff's eye through the glass door. She nods at him and he steps back into the shadows.

The receptionist returns with a nurse and a doctor who investigate Britta's paperwork further. The doctor claims he needs to makes some phone calls before he can release Annie. He gestures for Britta to take a seat and as she waits, she can almost hear Abed's phone ring outside.

He may spend his free time dressed up as a fictional character, Britta thinks, but he is damn good at impersonations.

Annie screams when they put her in the car. She kicks and Britta thinks she bites Troy at one point. They can't get her to calm down, not even when Abed shows her the dress he made for her. Shirley drives as fast as she can but with the detours they take in case anyone follows them, everyone is bruised and tired when they finally pull into Pierce's driveway.

Abed and Troy carry her upstairs and show her the room she'll be staying in. They show her how her things have been unpacked and her throw pillows arranged perfectly on the bed: by color, just the way she likes them. She starts yelling and tossing the pillows across the room.

They all look at each other helplessly. "She wasn't like this at the hospital," Troy says. The sound of his voice causes Annie to scream even harder. He leaves the room with a sad look on his face.  
She screams and yells for hours and hours and eventually her voice goes hoarse and she falls asleep. They lock the door when they leave and Britta takes a few deep breaths and tries to stop her hands from shaking.

"This was a fucking stupid idea," she says. She goes into her own room and slams the door behind her. No one agrees with her, but no one disagrees, either.

-

Annie thrashes in her sleep. It's after two in the morning but Abed isn't sleeping. His notebook is open in his lap and he's thinking of what the prime timeline study group is doing now. Spring break is over so they probably just got back to school. They have Biology in the morning. They probably have to make a diorama. The dean is planning a spring dance. Jeff won't want to go, but he will after some convincing. There's probably some sort of romantic drama going on.

Abed closes his notebook and creeps across the hall. The key to Annie's room is on top of the doorframe. He unlocks it and Annie is having a nightmare, rolling from one side of the bed to the other and back, whimpering, crying. The room is totally trashed but somehow the Geneva dress is still folded neatly on top of the dresser. Abed sits down on the bed and nudges Annie softly. Her eyes open and she looks panicked. When she sees Abed her body tenses and he's afraid she's going to start screaming again.

"Annie, it's just me."

"Okay," she says. Her voice is still hoarse. She reaches out and grabs his hand. "I don't like it here."

Abed frowns. This isn't how it's supposed to be. "But we're all here. And we're going back to the prime timeline."

"We're not all here," she says sadly. "Pierce isn't here because I killed him."

Her eyes well with tears and Abed still doesn't know how to handle crying. "It was an accident. And besides, it doesn't even matter. When we get to the prime timeline Pierce will be there."

"What do we do when we get there?"

"We have to destroy them."

Annie blinks a few times. "Abed, I can't kill anyone else. I'm not a murderer."

"Not even to make everything better?"

She pulls her hand away and shakes her head.

"Just think of them as blorgons. I'm going back to bed. Goodnight, Annie."

He locks the door back up and returns to his notebook. _Annie isn't ready_, he writes in the margin.

-

The next day Abed and Troy leave Britta, Jeff, and Shirley in charge of Annie and go back to scope out their apartment. Structural damage and their landlord's indifference to getting the place back up to code means there's still caution tape all around, but the police officers are gone. The building looks scary and menacing. No one's around, so they're able to duck under the caution tape and creep up the stairs.

Once inside, they find that the apartment hasn't even really been touched since the night of the fire. The whole living room is covered in soot and ash. There's blood everywhere. The kitchen table lay on the floor in charred ruins. It's as if no one cares about the building. As if it's supposed to stay like this, as some sort of reminder that they're all in the darkest, most terrible timeline.

Troy wants to look through his things in the bedroom to make sure that his Spiderman action figures and football trophies and Kickpuncher DVDs are okay. Abed leaves him in the bedroom and heads down the hall to the Dreamatorium. A hunk of the door is missing, burned away in the fire.  
But inside, it's perfectly fine.

Abed opens the closet where the engine sits, completely in tact. This is it. There's a reason everything else in the apartment is damaged by smoke and soot and water from the firefighters. There's a reason this room and only this room looks exactly the same as it did six months ago.

Abed runs his hand over his goatee and smiles.

Britta hobbles together a turkey and cheese sandwich and brings it to Annie's room with a glass of water and a couple of Advil. A bogus doctor means no prescription and Annie's going to be off all the meds she was being given in the hospital. According to Britta's weekly updates, there were a lot. Advil won't help her mind, but it will probably help her throat.

Annie doesn't yell or scream or throw things when Britta opens the door. She's sitting at the head of the bed, her knees up to her chest, as if she's trying to make herself as small as possible. She stares out the window and it's eerily similar to the way Jeff used to stare at the wall, before he started to believe in timelines and time travel and breaking sick people out of hospitals.

But she looks somehow better. There's color in her cheeks and she's wringing her fingers the way she does when she's nervous. Britta can see the old Annie in her eyes again, small and subtle, but it's there.

"I brought you some lunch," she says quietly, setting the plate down on the nightstand. "How are you?"

Annie doesn't reply for almost a minute. "Abed says when we get to the prime timeline we have to destroy ourselves. He wants me to kill more people, Britta."

Britta never thought about what would happen once they got to the prime timeline because she never believed it would actually happen. There's only one timeline and that's the one they're in. She's been going along with this whole stupid thing because she's run out of ways to take care of her friends. But then she remembers what Abed said all those months ago, in the study room. _We are the evil study group._

"First of all, you didn't kill Pierce. It wasn't your fault and there's no one here who blames you. And Abed doesn't know what he's talking about. No one's going to kill anyone." Britta shakes two Advil out of the bottle. "Here, take these. They'll help your throat."

Annie swallows the pills and Britta stands up to leave. "It'll be okay, Annie, it really will."

Britta goes downstairs and sneaks outside to the car. She needs a fucking cigarette.

-

Abed and Troy dress in their Inspector Spacetime clothes again and bound into Annie's room. She looks much more like their Annie in her own pink pajamas with the flowers on them.

"Why Reggie," Abed says, "I do believe we need a second constable for our next adventure."

Troy is still afraid to talk in front of Annie and so just nods, a big smile plastered on his face.

Annie stares out the window. Shirley washed her hair earlier and it's still damp, curling around her shoulders. It hangs heavy and makes her look even smaller. She's easily lost fifteen pounds she couldn't afford to spare, Abed estimates. Maybe he'll make her some buttered noodles for lunch.

"I'm looking for Geneva, miss, have you seen her?"

Abed spots the dress still folded neatly on top of the dresser and picks it up. "Ah, her clothing!" He puts the dress on the bed next to where Annie's sitting.

A few minutes pass without anyone saying anything and then Annie turns her head slowly. "Aye, Inspector. Constable Geneva reporting for duty," she says in a terrible Cockney accent. She reaches underneath her pillow and pulls out her felt goatee. A smile graces her lips as she puts it on her face. It's a smile Abed's never seen and for a moment he's not sure what it means. Then he recognizes it, only because he's felt it on his own face for the last six months. It's the smile of someone who's lost too much and has too much to gain.

Annie falls to the dark side.

Britta takes up chain-smoking on the back porch. She tries to be sneaky about it, hiding cigarettes in her shirt or her boots, spraying her clothes with Febreeze before she comes back inside. But it's Abed who finally catches her one morning, when she wakes up before everyone else and brews a cup of too-strong coffee and takes five cigarettes outside to smoke.

"Can I have one?" Abed asks, sitting on the chair next to her. They're cheap, plastic garden chairs, the kind you can buy at the grocery store over Memorial Day weekend.

Britta hands him a cigarette from her bra without turning to look at him. Her lighter is on the table and he lights his cigarette with a flourish, as if he's been doing it for years and years.

"I didn't know you smoked."

"Every once in a while," Abed says.

"Did you tell Annie that she has to kill an alternate version of herself?"

"Annie's better now," he answers, sidestepping her question. "She played Inspector Spacetime with me and Troy yesterday. And she ate lunch with us and she's much better than she was when we visited her in the hospital."

Britta takes another drag. "No one is killing anyone, okay, Abed? You need to tell Annie that."

Abed blinks. "Okay." He pauses. "We're going to make it to the prime timeline, Britta. And we're going to do it soon."

Britta doesn't reply and Abed stands up and goes back inside, flicking his cigarette off the porch as he does so. Britta drains the rest of her coffee and stubs out the still-burning cigarette with her heel.

Jeff is still in bed when she goes back upstairs. She shakes him awake roughly and he scowls at her.

"We have to talk," she says.

"Are you breaking up with me?" he says sleepily and it's just sarcastic enough to make her stop and think about three years ago when he hit on her and she pretended she didn't like him.

"Shut up. This is important."

He moves to a sitting position and looks at her expectantly. "What's going on?"

She takes a breath and suddenly feels stupid, vulnerable. "What do you think is going to happen if Abed's right and we can cross into another timeline? What do you think his plan is?"

"He told us that first day, didn't he? The day of the funeral? Destroy other versions of ourselves."

"And you're ready to do that."

Jeff runs his hand through his hair. "I'm ready for this to be over. Even if we don't cross the time continuum or whatever, we're doing something. We got Annie out of the hospital. We're trying to make things better. It sure beats sitting around this house moping because our lives suck." He nudges her shoulder. "Hey, if you don't want to kill another version of yourself I'll kill you."

She laughs because it's the most bizarre thing she's ever heard.

"I want my life back, Britta. And at this point, I'll do anything I can to make it happen."

Britta thinks about her job, her apartment, the bachelor's degree she was so close to attaining. Sitting around the study table and Greendale classes and the seven of them against the world. Of course she wants it back, can see it when she closes her eyes.

"You know we need you to do this, right? It's not going to work without all of us," Jeff says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

He leans in and kisses her and she knows that still, after all this time, that Jeff Winger is her downfall. "You're not going to grow a goatee now, are you?" she asks after they part.

"I'm going to have to, I think. Ask Abed for a felt one. We'll match."

She laughs and maybe it's all in her head, but it sounds different to her own ears.

-

Abed calls a family meeting at the end of April. He, Troy, and Annie have been dressed in their Inspector Spacetime costumes for weeks. Annie cries when Shirley claims it needs to be thrown in with the rest of the laundry. She clings to the dress and the accent and Troy and Abed. Britta doesn't think she's getting better at all, but keeps the thought to herself.

"Saturday is my birthday, so it would make sense that we'd all be at our apartment having a party. So we can enter through the Dreamatorium and destroy ourselves right then and there. Then, we can take our rightful places."

Britta, Shirley, and Annie all wear felt goatees. Troy, Abed, and Jeff keep their facial hair carefully sculpted. A few months ago Jeff cringed when he had a five o'clock shadow. Now he watches Abed stand and speak to them as if he is their leader. As if he is Jeff from one year ago.

Britta still doesn't know if this is going to work. It seems crazy and ridiculous but if there's anything she's learned in her life, and especially her time at Greendale, it's that things that are crazy and ridiculous are often true.

"Then I can go home, right?" Shirley asks. A drink sits before her and she visibly tries to abstain but can't.

"Yes," Abed nods. "We'll meet down here at seven tomorrow night to go over to the apartment. There hasn't been anyone around there in weeks. They still don't know when they'll be fixing the damage from the fire. The Dreamatorium doesn't have any damage."

They decide to take two cars to the apartment and the meeting is unofficially adjourned. Shirley goes into the living room to watch TV and try to call Andre, the same way she does every night. Abed, Troy, and Annie go upstairs to plot and play Inspector Spacetime and whatever they do. There is still something not right about Annie; she still trembles at the sound of Troy's voice, she still stares out the window for hours at a time, she still screams during the night from nightmares.

Jeff goes to the bathroom and Britta slips outside to the back porch and lights a cigarette. Her hands are shaking, have been for days and weeks and months now, but she thinks she did a pretty good job of playing it cool in the dining room. She doesn't hear the door slide open or Jeff sit down next to her until he speaks: "Smoking again, huh?"

She starts, her heart racing a million miles an hour and it takes her a second to catch her breath. "It's a pretty evil habit, I figured I would just get into character."

Jeff smiles but then his face turns serious. He looks so much older with the goatee; the hair on his face is tinged with gray, like it had a harder path than the hair on the rest of his body. "Ready for tomorrow?"

"Sure," she says. "Do you really think life's going to be actually better? We're still the same people over there as we are here. Maybe the accident didn't happen to that place but it happened to us. Your arm isn't going to magically grow back. Annie's not going to get better. Troy's larynx isn't going to be unburned. Shirley's still going to be an alcoholic. Won't we just be adjusting to a new world while still having the same problems?"

"Probably," Jeff shrugs. "But like I said before, at least we're doing something. None of us had a chance after that gun went off, you know that. I rigged it all so that I wouldn't have to go downstairs to get the pizza and I made Troy go down instead. I don't think everything would have fallen apart so terribly if I had just sucked it up and volunteered to go downstairs."

"But the same could be said for any of us," Britta says. "We were all too lazy to go downstairs and this is the price we paid. But maybe it all happens for a reason. Maybe we get to that other timeline and you got the pizza but something else terrible happened. Maybe Pierce died anyway and you got in a car accident and Troy got cancer and Annie had a relapse and Andre left Shirley again."

Jeff frowns. "Then we... come back, I guess."

Britta lights another cigarette and takes a long drag. Her hands are still shaking.

"Come on." Jeff stands up. "Let's get out of here for a little while." They get in his car and drive and drive, circling Greendale three times, driving through the empty campus of the school, staring longingly at places they used to live. The last remnants of winter are still in the air and Britta sinks low into the passenger seat, turns the seat warmer all the way up. They listen to bad pop music and Jeff makes fun when Britta sings along and he yells when she tries to smoke in the car and she says he drives too slow, calls him grandpa. They park and have sex in the backseat, then drive around some more until the sun comes up. Then they go back home and sleep through the morning.

Annie's energy is still pretty low so she changes into her pajamas and the boys follow suit. Troy and Abed have gathered blankets from the linen closet and made their room into a blanket fort. The three of them sit inside of it, on top of piles of pillows. Annie sits in the middle and Abed is afraid to get too close to her. She still looks so fragile, like she'll break if he nudges her too hard.

"I'm not scared," she says softly. Once she spoke with all the confidence in the world. She was a girl who was going to make it.

Troy smiles and shakes his head as if to say, _me neither_. Annie leans over and kisses him on the cheek, then turns and does the same to Abed. She grabs their hands and her eyes droop, heavy with sleep.

"You can stay here tonight," Abed says, gesturing toward the beds.

"Can we push them together?" Annie asks.

Troy nods and he and Abed stand up and make one big bed. Annie climbs in and settles in the middle, Troy on her left and Abed on her right. She's asleep almost instantly and Abed wonders how they went so many months without her. It must have been lonely, empty without her between them. He catches Troy's eye over Annie's sleeping form and knows he's thinking the same thing.

-

Britta wakes before Jeff again the next morning. He sleeps like he has no worries, like his life is perfect and he rules the courtroom and he has two whole arms. She kisses him on the nose even though it's cheesy and sentimental.

Downstairs, she finds Shirley in the kitchen on the phone, trying to get Andre to let her see the boys today. She hasn't seen them since Thanksgiving.

"You can't tell me when I can and cannot see my own children," Shirley says angrily into the phone. "I'll take them from you so fast..."

Andre must have hung up on her because she slams the phone onto the table. "I should just go over there and get them. That'll teach him."

"You'll see them tonight," Britta says. A kidnapping charge on top of forgery and breaking and entering is the last thing they need. "And things with Andre will be better, too."

Shirley shakes her head. "You don't keep a mother from her babies. You just don't."

Britta doesn't point out that the mother in question has been sober for a total of maybe twelve hours in the last eight months. Shirley is a mean drunk. Evil Shirley is cruel.

-

That night Jeff, Britta, and Shirley get into Britta's car and Troy, Abed, and Annie get into Troy's car and they drive over to the apartment. It's dark outside and everything is eerily still and quiet. Abed thinks that's a good sign. He and Troy are dressed in black, but Annie refused to take her Geneva dress off. There's a tea stain and a grape jelly stain and a soy sauce stain and it hasn't been washed ever but Annie doesn't care. She cries when Britta or Shirley tries to take it away.

They sneak up the stairs and Abed feels a sense of purpose. This is what they're supposed to do. They needed to give in to the dark side and he got them all to do it. They are the evil study group. They will cross timelines. They will destroy their counterparts. Everything will be better.

Troy unlocks the door and everyone is silent as Abed leads them down the hall to the Dreamatorium. He gives the apartment one final look; the next time he sees it, it will be whole and undamaged, no charred furniture or smoke damage or blood stain. Everyone gathers inside and Abed closes the door behind him.

"I'm going to set up the simulation, but with the criteria that we actually cross over. It's almost a sure thing that our other selves are going to be here in the apartment, celebrating my birthday. We might be able to send them back to this timeline through the Dreamatorium. If not, well, you know."

Everyone nods. Abed knows Britta doesn't believe in this, or that it will work, or that killing themselves is the right thing to do. She never has, has only pretended for their sakes. He appreciates that, but it's obvious from her secret smoking and her sleeping with Jeff again, not to mention her shaking hands, that she's only doing this because she's given up trying to mother them all.

Annie looks around nervously but bites her lip in false determination. Troy holds her hand and smiles. Shirley clasps her hands in prayer and mutters to the ceiling. Jeff looks to each of them, as if counting, as if reminding himself that they are six instead of seven.

"Ready?" Abed doesn't wait for them to respond before he walks over to the back wall and pushes the buttons. "Begin crossover, evil study group to prime timeline."

Annie reaches for Abed's hand with her free one and as he laces his fingers through hers, the building begins to shake. The lights flicker a few times before everything goes dark. Annie screams and squeezes Abed's hand tighter. Through the door, Abed hears a laugh and Pierce's voice and the lights come back on.


End file.
